Ahmed El Gody
Media and Communication Studies
Örebro University
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Egyptian Print Media “Authoritarian” for the
Past 60 years
160 law article govern the Media
Journalist Community = Gov’t Employees
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More Egyptians are communicating in
Cyberspace
Number of Internet users increased seven
fold reaching 23.1 million
38% annual increase in high-speed Internet
subscribers
Mobile subscribers reached 65.4 million with
84.1% penetration
Personal computers 38 million
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Egyptians started utilizing the technology to debate
current events, criticize the government, public
officials, political parties, and to share personal
experiences to propose solutions to current sociopolitical problems
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Citizens quickly harnessed ICTs creating online news
sites, blogs, Vblogs, YouTube, twitters, podcasts, SMS
text messages, mobile phone web publishing, and
establishing accounts on social networks
 facebook (3.2 million users),
 Blogs (1,135,000)
 Youtube (3 million users)
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Two Spheres (Traditional Sphere/ Online
Network Sphere)
Proliferation of Independent Media (40%
Market Size in the past 5 years/ circulation
increased 59% of market)
Question Role ICTs play in promoting news
industry and the social democratisation
process in Egypt. Further what are the
problems hindering the full adoption and
usage of ICT in Egyptian newsrooms?
JOURNALISTS USE OF ICTS
INSIDE NEWSROOMS
WHILE REPORTING
JOURNALISTS USE
Typical Day of Technology usage inside Al Ahram Newsroom
Typical Day of Technology usage inside Al Dostor Newsroom
Typical Day of Technology usage inside Al Dostor Newsroom
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ICTs as technology is often thought to bring radical and fundamental change at the organizational structural level, where
the boundaries between original and new traditions of communicating are becoming less clear and the relationship
between different media production are characterized by increasing co-operation and compatibility.
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ICTs diffusion proved to be a form of slow evolutionary diffusion rather than revolutionary.
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News organizations do segregate between online and traditional production where online journalists are not involved in
the newsroom meetings or taking part in the overall plans of organization development.
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Online Journalists are seen as assistant journalists whose job is to build news archives or help journalists produce their ‘real
work.’
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Further, statistical figures witnessed stagnation in Egyptian news organization online presence where most organizations
fail to present original online content, update information presented, or interact with their audience.
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Reviewing Journalists attitude towards incorporating ICTs in their routine, longitudinal research showed diffusion of ICTs
‘online’ elements in their ‘offline’ routine activities.
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Qualitative observation proved that point showing journalists do use material online either without attribution or
attributing the work to themselves.
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The concept of networking is still in its initial stage
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Presence of a gap between the organization and journalists, that is clear in the number of journalists who reported not
knowing ICTs diffusion on the organizational level but giving answers on their own individual level, which brings the issue
of transparency of information within news organizations.
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A decade of studying newsroom convergence, still there are barriers that hinder full adoption of ICTs into news
production. Individual barriers, organizational, technological, professional, legal, and governmental barriers we defined as
the main problems hindering the evolution of the adoption. Time changed in the dynamics of order of levels of barriers
however time also showed an increase in the intensity of the problems.